Blogs

About this blog

Welcome to the System z Management Blog, where you can read the perspectives from System z experts. This Blog provides insights into the System z solution, as well as technical details about specific IBM products.

Recent tweets

IBM Security zSecure Manager for RACF z/VM 1.11.2 was announced this week at IBM Interconnect 2015 with a planned availability date of March 13, 2015. This release is based on IBM Security zSecure Suite 2.1.1 (for z/OS) and introduces the zSecure Audit Compliance Testing Framework to the z/VM operating system. Background Mainframes continue to be the home for mission critical information and essential business production applications in many organizations due to the strong heritage of integrated security support capabilities... [More]

On December 19, 2014 a new service stream enhancement (SSE) to zSecure Audit 2.1.1 has become generally available, adding additional compliance checks for the Security Technical Implementation Guide (STIG) for z/OS from the US Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). Following the support added for IBM MQ for z/OS in zSecure 2.1.1, this SSE focuses on compliance checks for MQ. Background The Security Technical Implementation Guide from DISA provides a framework for ensuring that security is set up properly. IBM Security zSecure Audit... [More]

On November 13, 2014 password security enhancements in RACF were made available for z/OS V1R12, V1R13, and V2R1. A service stream enhancement to zSecure 1.12, 1.13, 1.13.1, 2.1, and 2.1.1 was made available at the same time. Among other improvements, these updates allow a larger password space (additional special characters allowed) and a stronger encryption method (KDFAES). Background Password security is a function as much of user education (e.g., do not use the same password on a strongly protected work account as on your favorite... [More]

IBM Security zSecure suite 2.1.1 was announced on July 15, 2014, including a new product IBM Security zSecure Adapters for QRadar SIEM (5655-AD8), with a planned availability date of September 5, 2014. You can read the US announcement letter here . IBM Security QRadar SIEM consolidates log source event data from thousands of devices endpoints and applications distributed throughout a network. It normalizes information from many Log Sources through Device Support Modules (DSMs),... [More]

Version 3.0 of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) has become available on November 7, 2013 . Updates to IBM Sec u rit y zS e cur e 2 . 1 to extend the Compliance Testing Framework with PCI-DSS support have become available on November 22, 2013. A PCI-DSS option has been added to the rule-based auditing (AU.R) part of the User Interface. A data classification member has been added to the site customization to declare the presence of primary account numbers or sensitive authentication data,... [More]

Integration between IBM Security zSecure Audit 2.1 and IBM InfoSphere Guardium 9.1 is set to be available on October 25, 2013. zSecure Audit analyzes the protection of DB2 objects by RACF and internal security and makes these available to Guardium. Guardium includes new entitlement reports and delivers over 60 new vulnerability tests. Background Mainframes continue to be the home for mission critical information and essential business production applications in many organizations due to the strong... [More]

Integration between IBM Security zSecure Alert and QRadar SIEM 7 has become generally available on December 19, 2012. This integration allows forwarding real-time alerts from zSecure Alert to QRadar SIEM through the syslog protocol. zSecure Alert zSecure Alert is the real-time monitor component of the zSecure suite. It can correlate events and send out real-time alerts through e-mail, text message, Write To Operator console messages, SNMP traps, or syslog receiver events. It also integrates capabilities for data analysis and enrichment that... [More]

IBM Security zSecure 1.13.1 has become generally available on 10/26/2012. Notable features include: * automatically detecting active DB2 regions and reporting on those, with a focus on tables, views, plans, and packages, analyzing both RACF and DB2 internal security * comparison capabilities throughout the UI to highlight differences between databases and system snapshots * ability to define security standards and report compliance with regards to those * enhancements to the zSecure Admin Access Monitor component, allowing... [More]